There are budgetary restraints on foodservice and supermarket capital expenditures that preclude operators from buying multiple merchandisers to sell different items. No merchandising case exists that allows foodservice and supermarket operators to easily change functionality with interchangeable kits and parts so that they may sell different products in different departments from one case. The invention claimed here solves this problem.
Merchandising cases stay in one place with set functions and merchandise the same things. It would take up to 10 different style cases currently available in the marketplace to perform all of the functions this system performs. The claimed invention differs from what currently exists. This case and its interchangeable kits eliminate the need for foodservice and supermarket operators to buy multiple cases with different functions to sell different products in different departments. As it is intended for use in public shopping areas, it also provides sanitation features not normally found anywhere other than in employee work spaces.
Merchandising equipment for foodservice and supermarket operators provide singular functions and cannot be easily changed to merchandise different products as desired in different departments. Therefore, multiple equipment purchases are required. Supermarkets can't use bakery tables to merchandise produce, or produce tables to merchandise seafood, or seafood tables to function as a rolling butcher shop for meat and poultry, or a butcher table to shuck clams or oysters, or a shucking table to merchandise bottled drinks on ice, or an ice table to display bakery items.
This system performs the multiple functions outlined herein, saving money, preserving space, and increasing sales, by allowing for the purchase of a single case with kits that are easily fitted onto and off the case that change the functionality. This one case can be moved into different departments and fitted with different kits to sell different things.
This merchandising case has multiple interchangeable kits and parts that provide changing functionality for sales of products in different foodservice and supermarket departments. The kits allow the operator to change the case from a range of self service and full service functions with minimal or no tools required. Operators can thereby change the kit as desired to use the same piece of equipment in different departments to sell many different products ranging from cut meat, poultry, seafood, shucked oysters, sausages, produce, bakery, groceries, floral, juice, general merchandise and more.
In addition, food retailers are challenged by high occupancy costs per square foot, and therefore they must make decisions regarding what types of merchandising they can fit into their floor plan and which will not. Further, storage space in supermarkets and food retailers is even more restricting, therefore, whatever can stay on the sales floor and out of the back room is a blessing to retailers. Labor reduction is one of the 2 biggest hot buttons for supermarkets. Moving this system from department to department is more efficient than sending it into the storage area at the end of any given day, and retrieving it the next day. As the kits are designed specifically so they do not require tools to install or remove, there is nothing to impede the interchangeable kit change over, which typically take 1-2 minutes. This is also important to retailers, whose staff is not necessarily mechanically competent to use tools, and tools are not typically on site.
In the accompanying example of a merchandising display case FIG. 29A-29Z (Prior Art), which is commonly used in the foodservice and supermarket industry independently with a singular function, the depicted merchandiser generally has a base that is constructed of as many as 12 cut steel tubes, which are welded together to create a base frame, whereby each tube has to be notched, coped, deburred and polished, then welded together so that a final grinding and polishing process can finish the base. That entire fabrication process is very costly, labor intensive, material intensive and yields a “busy” look and an unnecessarily heavy base. In addition, it creates more joints that are subject to cracking or breaking, and which accumulate dirt. The new base design claimed in this invention reduces 12 straight tubes to 4 bent tubes, reducing the weight, visual confusion, labor, material, risk of breakage, and dirt accumulation. This new base design has been tested to hold 500 lbs., which far exceeds the possible weight of the loaded case.
These and other aspects, features and advantages of the present invention will become better understood in conjunction with the reading of the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof, appended claims, and accompanying drawings.